


Rabble Drabbles

by Kymopoleia



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, RIP, these prolly all suck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 16:05:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5212136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kymopoleia/pseuds/Kymopoleia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Usually unconnected drabbles, pairing is the chapter title and the summary/notes for each chapter should list what the prompt is</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jason/Octavian

**Author's Note:**

> “In the storm” and “All I ask”  
> Notes: Armilustrium – October 19 To Mars. This marked the end of the military campaigning season. Soldiers' weapons were ritually purified and stored for the winter on the Aventine Hill. The assembled army was garlanded with flowers and reviewed in the Circus Maximus. Trumpets were played. There was a procession with torches and sacrificial animals.

Jason blew out a breath, rubbing his hands together. The Temple of Jupiter offers little protection from the raging inclement weather, and the winds do little to help the chill starting to set in with the late October haze. Octavian had come to him just before the parade, red-faced and smiling, and asked for Jason to meet him at the temple after it was over. Unfortunately, it had started pouring before the parade was over. Maria, centurion of the fourth cohort and daughter of Mars, however, had turned, grinning from ear to ear and raised her sword, calling out to her father, her siblings, her fellow soldiers. She said that the rain was her father’s tears of joy at their past year of victories, and the parade had continued on with more vigor than before.

Jason had always enjoyed Armilustrium, though it had taken him well over a decade to pronounce the word correctly. The purification and storing of the vast majority of their weapons was always like a new beginning, giving the younger soldiers a chance to relax and the older soldiers a time to heal. He’d been attending and part of the procession since he first came here, at three years old, and it was always a fun time spent with his fellow legionaires, despite how alone he felt.

But now, shivering near the altar to his father in the massive temple, he can’t believe he’d agreed to wait here. Well, yes he can. Octavian had asked him with the cutest rosy face and sweet, honest tone. Jason had known the haruspex long enough to be able to tell when he was faking, and when Octavian had spoken to him earlier there hadn’t been an ounce of anything suspicious.

There’s a small cough from across the temple, and Jason half-turns to see Octavian, dry and leaning against one of the columns on the inner circle of the temple. Jason isn’t sure how he hadn’t seen him, but the augur’s smile is so obvious that Jason can’t bring himself to say anything about it.

Octavian walks over to him, slowly, hands behind his back and wide smile looking like the most gleeful attempt at covering something exciting up. Jason leans on the altar, a smile infecting his own features. “Hey.” He says.

Octavian pauses, raising a shoulder to press his face into to muffle a chuckle. “Hey.”

Jason lifts an eyebrow. “Hm?”

Octavian takes another step closer, and the winds slow their howling as his rich gold-lined robes slide over the marble floor. He walks slowly, but not as slow as he could, as if he’s too excited to control his pace.

Jason’s smile widens, the scar on his lip tugging familiarly. He’s starting to see Octavian more clearly in the dim evening glow, one which persists even through the harsh thunder and bulletlike pounding of raindrops into the hard roman soil.

Octavian is almost close enough to touch when there’s the sound of thunder crackling through the air, the feeling of electricity coursing through their skin and bones, and Jason automatically knows that there’d been a lightning strike just outside the temple. Octavian’s knees give out as the rain starts to pound harder, making the smell of smoke seem even more out of place, and he drops whatever he’d been holding to put his hands over his ears, his eyes squeezed closed and his face scrunched up in pain.

Jason steps forward, puts a hand on Octavian’s elbow, concern and fear filling him. He knows most of Octavian’s powers rely on a medium of stuffed entrails, but the boy looks as if something is screaming at him, something searing its way into his brain through his ears.

Octavian jerks out of his touch, and his robes stretch and threaten to rip from the sudden violent tugging on them from where Jason had accidentally stepped on their hems. His breathing quickens and Jason draws back, unsure of what to do but knowing that something is wrong.

Finally, a long moment passes as a furious wind begins to whip through the temple. Octavian’s hands fall, but he can’t pull his eyes, now devoid of any joy, from the ground.

“Octavian?” Jason stage-whispers, loud enough to be heard but still trying to be quiet.

“I… I have to go.” Octavian whispers back, and if Jason weren’t a son of Jupiter he’d have no clue what had passed from that boy’s lips into the sanctity of the howling near-hurricane surrounding them.

Jason frowns. “What? Is something wrong?”

Octavian looks up to staring at his chin, at the scar on his lip, and swallows. “No.” He turns and almost sprints out of the temple, his footsteps lost to the raging storm. Where he’d stood before a small Imperial gold coin lays.

Jason had known that look well enough to tell that he’d been lying.


	2. Luke/Octavian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'we were pretending to be lovers but I’m not pretending anymore and I have to know if you feel the same way'

Luke stared at his phone as he waited for the clerk to finish filling his prescription, his leg bouncing and teeth worrying his lower lip. He just needed his medication and the green tea ice cream, then he could get going to his fake boyfriend’s house.

Octavian. He was a sophomore in highschool and six years younger than Luke, but this illegal fake relationship was better than the alternative of Kronos Saturnino, his creepy economics teacher who was always trying to get him alone. Luke had picked Octavian up one day when the kid needed to stay after to retake some test he’d missed, and it hadn’t even taken a minute of badgering before the floodgates opened.

It was cliché. It was creepy. It was stupid. Luke was stupid. He needed to just end things with Octavian, tell the school’s administration, do something other than fall deeper and deeper into this rabbit hole.

The clerk gives him a pitying look as he gives Luke the heavy bag of pills and drops, but Luke ignores him and pays before snagging some of Octavian’s favorite ice cream and, after a moment’s hesitation, a bag of half-priced candy hearts. He’d had to work all valentine’s day, and was making it up to Octavian through cuddling and ice cream and avoiding everything else.

The drive from the grocery store is short and Luke passes all of the unfamiliarly posh suburban houses that feel so spacious compared to his own apartment- he hadn’t been able to stand living with his mother anymore, not after the stench of rotted PB&J got too thick to breathe through.

Octavian’s front yard is dotted with cutesy lawn gnomes in various odd positions, and Luke parks in the driveway because none of Octavian’s family is home to tell him he can’t. The door is unlocked and he stops by the kitchen for a glass of water and a spoon before he heads into Octavian’s room.

Octavian’s wearing Luke’s college sweatshirt as he sits up near his headboard, eyes on his phone and lips parted. His hair is messy and he has thick shadows under his eyes like bruises, and Luke wants to kiss him but he knows he can’t.

Octavian’s eyes dart up to the door when it creaks at the three-quarter open mark, just like usual, but he visibly relaxes when he sees that it’s Luke.

Luke hands the ice cream and spoon over, and Octavian digs in immediately. Luke sips the water, cracks open a box of candy hearts, slides into the bed next to Octavian. Octavian leans onto him, spoon attacking the tub.

Luke waits for Octavian to say whatever was obviously on his mind, because usually Octavian says something by now.

He doesn’t mind the quiet, the pause, because they don’t need words, even though it’s obvious from the way Octavian’s spoon starts hesitating between bites, metal edge gently scraping the messy chunks left behind from his earlier battle for spoonfuls before it started to warm further.

“Luke?”

“Yeah?” Luke smiles, popping a ‘just u’ into his mouth.

“I… it’s not fake anymore. Not for me.”

Luke’s heart drops, he can’t help but think of the pills in his car with ‘Castellan, Luke’ typed on their sides, of his mother in the rotting house, of creepy Mr. Saturnino in his freezing classroom. Luke panics.

Octavian bites his lip, slowly shifting to look up at Luke.

His eyes are so… Hopeful. Expectant. Wary. Scared.

Luke freezes, trembling hands holding another candy heart.

“I don’t- I can’t love you like that, I’m sorry, I have to go.” He slips off the bed and drops the candy heart, rushing out of there.

When Octavian wipes away the tears and picks up the candy, it reads “I love you” and tastes bitter.


	3. Nico/Octavian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just told you I liked you but now I’m shy and say “never mind, forget it” and why are you looking at me like that?

“Excuse me?” Nico knows that voice. It’s just this side of raspy but still smooth and enchanting. It is the wrong voice. It is not Perseus Jackson’s voice. He cracks open an eye and lets out his breath, starting to turn redder.

Octavian is standing there, confused and holding two cups of hot chocolate. Nico had, somehow, lost Percy. He looks around and spots the idiot leaning against a wall and talking to Reyna. Nico looks back at Octavian, looks at the hot chocolate, and scrunches up his face.

“Nothing, never mind. Forget it, okay?” He turns and starts walking away, shoving his hands into the pockets of his bomber jacket. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course, even without his memories, Percy wouldn’t care about him.

“Wait- Di Angelo!” Octavian calls after him, and Nico freezes. Octavian moves so that he’s in front of Nico, and rolls his eyes, and now Nico can see that the augur’s cheeks are tinted pink. 

“The hot chocolate is for you, Prince of Death.”

Nico raises an eyebrow. “Really? You, Augur of the great Roman State, would call anyone Prince?”

Octavian smiles at him. “Always good to recognize one’s superiors.”

“You don’t seem the type to be into that.”

“And you, my prince, would do good to not assume things about others.”


	4. Ethan/Octavian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have you shoved against the wall but now I can’t stop looking at your mouth

Octavian is looking down at Ethan, but Ethan can’t seem to focus on his pale blue eyes. He’d pushed Octavian up against the wall to get the truth about his intentions in befriending Luke, his intentions in joining the friend group and forcing his way in. Elysium had room for many things, but Octavian didn’t seem like he should be one of them.

Any words Ethan had been thinking die off as he stares at those pale, pouty lips, full and large and smooth. They part slightly, and there’s a sliver of teeth visible.

Ethan almost leans in before he realizes what he’s doing and snaps his eyes back up.

Octavian’s eyes betray nothing, but they stare into Ethan’s intently.

Ethan pulls back, swallowing. He doesn’t remember what he was supposed to say anymore.


	5. Will/Octavian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things you said that i wasn’t meant to hear

Will trails his fingers lazily up and down Octavian’s bare hip and thigh, basking in the warm afterglow. If there was one thing they’d both inherited from Apollo, it was that their internal body temperatures were so high and their bodies so conductive that they felt like miniature space heaters. Will hadn’t expected it, not with the roman’s anemia and cold fingers and toes, but as soon as they’d gotten heated with their touches and kisses, the cold fingers felt like heaven as they danced over his neck, his chest, his arms, tangling with his own strong hands. Octavian’s were softer, as Will had had much longer and much more work and scalpel flicks and sharp arrow tips and guitar strums to turn his hands into the calloused mess they are now.

He’s pretty sure Octavian is on the verge of sleep, can see his eyelids drooping further in the sliver of light from the closed blinds, can feel the soft rise and fall of his back and chest pressed up against Will’s own, can feel the kitten breaths on his arm.

In the dim room, in the heavy August heat, Will can see the tattoos on Octavian’s arm and remembers the one on his hip of Apollo drawing his bow, lines drawn between freckles like one would map the stars. Will’s fingers trail over it again, tracing the curve of the bow. Octavian shivers, blows another breath out onto his arm, tickling the hair there.

Will presses a butterfly kiss to Octavian’s neck, over one of the hickies he’d accidentally left. He hadn’t meant to, hadn’t intended for the presses and nips to mark the roman, but they had and Octavian had seemed to like it before the laziness set in.

Maybe it was winter coming. Maybe Octavian just liked things like that. He didn’t know, still didn’t know him well enough.

As he finds himself nearer and nearer sleep as well, he hears a whispered “Sorry,” from Octavian, but doesn’t get a chance to ask what he means.


End file.
